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THE HOUSE OF LIFE 





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CUSS A- XXa No 



COPYRIGHT, 1903, 
BY H. M. OALDWELL OO. 



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Part I. YOUTH AND CHANGE 





INTRODUCTORY SONNET 

SONNET is a moment's monu- 
ment, — 

Memorial from the Soul's eter- 
nity 

To one dead deathless hour. Look 
that it be, 

Whether for lustral rite or dire 
portent, 

Of its own arduous fulness reverent : 

Carve it in ivory or in ebony, 

As Day or Night may rule ; and let Time see 

Its flowering crest impearled and orient. 

A Sonnet is a coin : its face reveals 
The soul, — its converse, to what Power 'tis due : — 
Whether for tribute to the august appeals 
Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, 
It serve ; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, 
In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death. 

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BRIDAL BIRTH 

S when desire, long darkling, 

dawns, and first 

The mother looks upon the new- 
born child, 

Even so my Lady stood at gaze 

and smiled 

When her soul knew at length the 

Love it nursed. 
Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst 
And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay 
Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day 
Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst. 

Now, shielded in his wings, our faces yearn 

Together, as his fullgrown feet now range 

The grove, and his warm hands our couch prepare : 

Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn 

Be born his children, when Death's nuptial change 

Leaves us for light the halo of his hair. 

VI 



**VA* 




LOVE'S REDEMPTION ' 

THOU who at Love's hour ecstat- 
ically 

Unto my lips dost evermore pre- 
sent 

The body and blood of Love in 
sacrament ; 

Whom I have neared and felt thy 
breath to be 
The inmost incense of his sanctuary ; 
Who without speech hast owned him, and intent 
Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent, 
And murmured o'er the cup, Remember me ! — 

O what from thee the grace, for me the prize, 
And what to Love the glory, — when the whole 
Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal 
And weary water of the place of sighs, 
And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes 
Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul ! 



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LOVESIGHT 

HEN do I see thee most, beloved 

one? 

When in the light the spirits of 

mine eyes 

Before thy face, their altar, solem- 
nize 

The worship of that Love through 

thee made known ? 
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,) 
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies 
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, 
And my soul only sees thy soul its own ? 

O love, my love ! if I no more should see 
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, — 
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope 
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, 
The wind of Death's imperishable wing ? 

VIII 



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HEART'S HOPE 




Y what word's power, the key of 
paths untrod, 
WX Shall I the difficult deeps of Love 
<uo explore, 

Till parted waves of Song yield 

Even as that sea which Israel 

crossed dry-shod ? 
For lo ! in some poor rhythmic period, 
Lady, I fain would tell how evermore 
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor 
Thee from myself, neither our love from God. 

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I 

Draw from one loving heart such evidence 

As to all hearts all things shall signify ; 

Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense 

As instantaneous penetrating sense, 

In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by. 

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THE KISS 

HAT smouldering senses in death's 

sick delay 

Or seizure of malign vicissitude 

Can rob this body of honour, or 

denude 

This soul of wedding-raiment 

worn to-day? 

For lo ! even now my lady's lips 

did play 
With these my lips such consonant interlude 
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed 
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay. 

I was a child beneath her touch, — a man 
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, — 
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, — 
A god when all our life-breath met to fan 
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran, 
Fire within fire, desire in deity. 



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NUPTIAL SLEEP 

T length their long kiss severed, 

with sweet smart: 

And as the last slow sudden drops 

are shed 

From sparkling eaves when all the 

storm has fled, 

So singly flagged the pulses of 

each heart. 

Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start 
Of married flowers to either side outspread 
From the knit stem ; yet still their mouths, burnt red, 
Fawned on each other where they lay apart. 

Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams, 
And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away. 
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams 
Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day ; 
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams 
He woke, and wondered more : for there she lay. 

XI 



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SUPREME SURRENDER 

O all the spirits of love that wander 
by 

Along the love-sown fallowfield 

of sleep 

My lady lies apparent; and the 

deep 

Calls to the deep; and no man 

sees but I. 
The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh, 
Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must 
weep 

When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap 
The sacred hour for which the years did sigh. 

First touched, the hand now warm around my neck 
Taught memory long to mock desire : and lo ! 
Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow, 
Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache : 
And next the heart that trembled for its sake 
Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow. 

XII 

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LOVE'S LOVERS 

OME ladies love the jewels in 

Love's zone 

And gold-tipped darts he hath for 

painless play 

In idle scornful hours he flings 

away; 

And some that listen to his lute's 

soft tone 

Do love to deem the silver praise their own ; 
Some prize his blindfold sight ; and there be they 
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday 
And thank his wings to-day that he is flown. 

My lady only loves the heart of Love : 
Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee 
His bower of unimagined flower and tree : 
There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of 
Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above, 
Seals with thy mouth his immortality. 

XIII 



PASSION AND WORSHIP 

NE flame-winged brought a white- 
winged harp-player 

Even where my lady and I lay all 

alone ; 

Saying: 'Behold, this minstrel is 

unknown ; 

Bid him depart, for I am minstrel 

here: 

Only my strains are to Love's dear ones dear.' 
Then said I: 'Through thine hautboy's rapturous 
tone 

Unto my lady still this harp makes moan, 
And still she deems the cadence deep and clear.' 

Then said my lady : ' Thou art Passion of Love, 
And this Love's Worship : both he plights to me. 
Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea : 
But where wan water trembles in the grove 
And the wan moon is all the light thereof, 
This harp still makes my name its voluntary.' 

XIV 






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THE PORTRAIT 

LORD of all compassionate con- 
trol, 

O Love ! let this my lady's picture 

glow 

Under my hand to praise her name, 

and show 

Even of her inner self the perfect 

whole : 

That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal, 
Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw 
And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know 
The very sky and sea-line of her soul. 

Lo ! it is done. Above the long lithe throat 
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss, 
The shadowed eyes remember and foresee. 
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note 
That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this !) 
They that would look on her must come to me. 

xv 




THE LOVE-LETTER 

ARMED by her hand and shad- 
owed by her hair 
As close she leaned and poured 
her heart through thee, 
Whereof the articulate throbs ac- 
company 

The smooth black stream that 
makes thy whiteness fair, — 
Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware, — 
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me 
That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree 
Like married music in Love's answering air. 

Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought, 
Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd, 
And her breast's secrets peered into her breast ; 
When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought 
My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught 
The words that made her love the loveliest. 

XVI 



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THE LOVERS' WALK 

WEET twining hedgeflowers wind- 
stirred in no wise 

On this June day ; and hand that 

clings in hand : — 

Still glades; and meeting faces 

scarcely fann'd : — 

An osier-odoured stream that 

draws the skies 
Deep to its heart ; and mirrored eyes in eyes : — 
Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land 
Of light and cloud ; and two souls softly spann'd 
With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs : — 

Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto 
Each other's visible sweetness amorously, — 
Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high decree 
Together on his heart for ever true, 
As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue 
Rests on the blue line of a foamless sea. 

XVII 



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YOUTH'S ANTIPHONY 

LOVE you, sweet: how can you 

ever learn 

How much I love you ? ' ' You I 

love even so, 

And so I learn it.' 'Sweet, you 

cannot know 

How fair you are.' ' If fair enough 

to earn 

Your love, so much is all my love's concern.' 
* My love grows hourly, sweet.' ' Mine too doth grow, 
Yet love seemed full so many hours ago ! ' 
Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn. 

Ah ! happy they to whom such words as these 
In youth have served for speech the whole day long, 
Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng, 
Work, contest, fame, all life's confederate pleas, — 
What while Love breathed in sighs and silences 
Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong. 



XVIII 








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YOUTH'S SPRING -TRIBUTE 

N this sweet bank your head thrice 

sweet and dear 

I lay, and spread your hair on 

either side, 

And see the newborn woodflowers 

bashful-eyed 

Look through the golden tresses 

here and there. 
On these debateable borders of the year 
Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know 
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow ; 
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear. 

But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day ; 
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss 
Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray, 
Up your warm throat to your warm lips : for this 
Is even the hour of Love's sworn suitservice, 
With whom cold hearts are counted castaway. 

XIX 



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THE BIRTH -BOND 

AVE you not noted, in some fam- 

ily 

Where two were born of a first 

marriage-bed, 

How still they own their gracious 

bond, though fed 

And nursed on the forgotten breast 

and knee ? — 
How to their father's children they shall be 
In act and thought of one goodwill ; but each 
Shall for the other have, in silence speech, 
And in a word complete community ? 

Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love, 
That among souls allied to mine was yet 
One nearer kindred than life hinted of. 
O born with me somewhere that men forget, 
And though in years of sight and sound unmet, 
Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough ! 

zx 





A DAY OF LOVE 

HOSE envied places which do 

know her well, 

And are so scornful of this lonely 

place, 

Even now for once are emptied of 

her grace : 

Nowhere but here she is: and 

while Love's spell 
From his predominant presence doth compel 
All alien hours, an outworn populace, 
The hours of Love fill full the echoing space 
With sweet confederate music favourable. 

Now many memories make solicitous 
The delicate love-lines of her mouth, till, lit 
With quivering fire, the words take wing from it ; 
As here between our kisses we sit thus 
Speaking of things remembered, and so sit 
Speechless while things forgotten call to us. 

XXI 



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BEAUTY'S PAGEANT 

$HAT dawn-pulse at the heart of 

heaven, or last 

Incarnate flower of culminating 

day,— 

What marshalled marvels on the 

skirts of May, 

Or song full-quired, sweet June's 

encomiast ; 

What glory of change by nature's hand amass'd 
Can vie with all those moods of varying grace 
Which o'er one loveliest woman's form and face 
Within this hour, within this room, have pass'd ? 

Love's very vesture and elect disguise 
Was each fine movement, — wonder new-begot 
Of lily or swan or swan-stemmed galiot ; 
Joy to his sight who now the sadlier sighs, 
Parted again ; and sorrow yet for eyes 
Unborn, that read these words and saw her not. 

XXII 



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GENIUS IN BEAUTY 

EAUTY like hers is genius. Not 

the call 

Of Homer's or of Dante's heart 

sublime, — 

Not Michael's hand furrowing the 

zones of time, — 

Is more with compassed mysteries 

musical ; 

Nay, not in Spring's or Summer's sweet footfall 
More gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeathes 
Than doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell 
breathes 
Even from its shadowed contour on the wall. 

As many men are poets in their youth, 
But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong 
Even through all change the indomitable song ; 
So in likewise the envenomed years, whose tooth 
Rends shallower grace with ruin void of ruth, 
Upon this beauty's power shall wreak no wrong. 



XXIII 



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SILENT NOON 

OUR hands lie open in the long 
fresh grass, — 

The finger-points look through like 
rosy blooms : 

Your eyes smile peace. The pas- 
ture gleams and glooms 
'Neath billowing skies that scatter 
and amass. 
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge 
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. 

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly 
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky : — 
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above. 
Oh ! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, 
This close-companioned inarticulate hour 
When twofold silence was the song of love. 

XXIV 



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GRACIOUS MOONLIGHT 

VEN as the moon grows queenlier 
in mid-space 

When the sky darkens, and her 
cloud-rapt car 

Thrills with intenser radiance 
from afar, — 
H/$ So lambent, lady, beams thy sov- 
ereign grace 
When the drear soul desires thee. Of that face 
What shall be said, — which, like a governing star, 
Gathers and garners from all things that are 
Their silent penetrative loveliness ? 

O'er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring, 
There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf 
With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf, 
So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring 
Of cloud above and wave below, take wing 
And chase night's gloom, as thou the spirit's grief. 

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LOVE - SWEETNESS 

WEET dimness of her loosened 

hair's downfall 

About thy face; her sweet hands 

round thy head 

In gracious fostering union gar- 
landed ; 

Her tremulous smiles ; her glances' 

sweet recall 
Of love ; her murmuring sighs memorial ; 
Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed 
On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led 
Back to her mouth which answers there for all : — 

What sweeter than these things, except the thing 
In lacking which all these would lose their sweet : — 
The confident heart's still fervour : the swift beat 
And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing, 
Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring, 
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet ? 

XXVI 



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HEART'S HAVEN 

OMETIMES she is a child within 

mine arms, 

Cowering beneath dark wings that 

love must chase, — 

With still tears showering and 

averted face, 

Inexplicably filled with faint 

alarms : 

And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms 
I crave the refuge of her deep embrace, — 
Against all ills the fortified strong place 
And sweet reserve of sovereign counter-charms. 

And Love, our light at night and shade at noon, 

Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away 

All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day. 

Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his 

tune; 

And as soft waters warble to the moon, 

Our answering spirits chime one roundelay. 



XXVII 



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LOVE'S BAUBLES 

STOOD where Love in brimming 

armfuls bore 

Slight wanton flowers and foolish 

toys of fruit : 

And round him ladies thronged in 

warm pursuit, 

Fingered and lipped and proffered 

the strange store : 
And from one hand the petal and the core 
Savoured of sleep ; and cluster and curled shoot 
Seemed from another hand like shame's salute, — 
Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for. 

At last Love bade my Lady give the same : 
And as I looked, the dew was light thereon ; 
And as I took them, at her touch they shone 
With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame. 
And then Love said : * Lo ! when the hand is hers, 
Follies of love are love's true ministers.' 



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PRIDE OF YOUTH 

VEN as a child, of sorrow that we 

give 

The dead, but little in his heart 

can find, 

Since without need of thought to 

his clear mind 

Their turn it is to die and his to 

live : — 

Even so the winged New Love smiles to receive 
Along his eddying plumes the auroral wind, 
Nor, forward glorying, casts one look behind 
Where night-rack shrouds the Old Love fugitive. 

There is a change in every hour's recall, 

And the last cowslip in the fields we see 

On the same day with the first corn-poppy. 

Alas for hourly change ! Alas for all 

The loves that from his hand proud Youth lets fall, 

Even as the beads of a told rosary ! 

XXIX 



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WINGED HOURS 






ACH hour until we meet is as a 

bird 

That wings from far his gradual 

way along 

The rustling covert of my soul, — 

his song 

Still loudlier trilled through leaves 

more deeply stirr'd : 
But at the hour of meeting, a clear word 
Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue ; 
Yet, Love, thou know'st the sweet strain suffers 
wrong, 
Through our contending kisses oft unheard. 

What of that hour at last, when for her sake 
No wing may fly to me nor song may flow ; 
When, wandering round my life unleaved, I know 
The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake, 
And think how she, far from me, with like eyes 
Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies ? 

xxx 



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MID -RAPTURE 

HOU lovely and beloved, thou my 

love; 

Whose kiss seems still the first; 

whose summoning eyes, 

Even now, as for our love-world's 

new sunrise, 

Shed very dawn; whose voice, 

attuned above 
All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, 
Is like a hand laid softly on the soul ; 
Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control 
Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of: — 




What word can answer to thy word, — what gaze 
To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere 
My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there 
Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays ? 
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, 
O lovely and beloved, O my love ? 

XXXI 








HEART'S COMPASS 

OMETIMES thou seem'st not as 

thyself alone, 

But as the meaning of all things 

that are ; 

A breathless wonder, shadowing 

forth afar 

Some heavenly solstice hushed 

and halcyon; 
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone ; 
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar, 
Being of its furthest fires oracular ; — 
The evident heart of all life sown and mown. 

Even such Love is ; and is not thy name Love ? 
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart 
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art ; 
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above ; 
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove, 
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart. 

XXXII 



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SOUL -LIGHT 

HAT other woman could be loved 

like you, 

Or how of you should love possess 

his fill? 

After the fulness of all rapture, 

still, — 

As at the end of some deep 

avenue 

A tender glamour of day, — there comes to view 
Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill, — 
Such fire as Love's soul-winnowing hands distil 
Even from his inmost arc of light and dew. 

And as the traveller triumphs with the sun, 
Glorying in heat's mid-height, yet startide brings 
Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs 
From limpid lambent hours of day begun ; — 
Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move 
My soul with changeful light of infinite love. 

XXXIII 












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THE MOONSTAR 

ADY, I thank thee for thy loveli- 
ness, 

Because my lady is more lovely 

still. 

Glorying I gaze, and yield with 

glad goodwill 

To thee thy tribute; by whose 

sweet-spun dress 
Of delicate life Love labours to assess 
My Lady's absolute queendom ; saying, ' Lo ! 
How high this beauty is, which yet doth show 
But as that beauty's sovereign votaress.' 

Lady, I saw thee with her, side by side ; 
And as, when night's fair fires their queen surround, 
An emulous star too near the moon will ride, — 
Even so thy rays within her luminous bound 
Were traced no more ; and by the light so drown'd, 
Lady, not thou but she was glorified. 

XXXIV 








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LAST FIRE 




OVE, through your spirit and mine 

what summer eve 

Now glows with glory of all things 

possess'd, 

Since this day's sun of rapture 

filled the west 

And the light sweetened as the 

fire took leave ? 
Awhile now softlier let your bosom heave, 
As in Love's harbour, even that loving breast, 
All care takes refuge while we sink to rest, 
And mutual dreams the bygone bliss retrieve. 

Many the days that Winter keeps in store, 
Sunless throughout, or whose brief sun-glimpses 
Scarce shed the heaped snow through the naked trees. 
This day at least was Summer's paramour, 
Sun-coloured to the imperishable core 
With sweet well-being of love and full heart's ease. 

xxxv 



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HER GIFTS 

IGH grace, the dower of queens; 

and therewithal 

Some wood-born wonder's sweet 

simplicity ; 

A glance like water brimming with 

the sky 

Or hyacinth-light where forest- 
shadows fall; 
Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral 
The heart ; a mouth whose passionate forms imply 
All music and all silence held thereby ; 
Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal ; 
A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine 
To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary ; 
Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, 
And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign : — 
These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er. 
Breathe low her name, my soul ; for that means more. 

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EQUAL TROTH 

OT by one measure mayst thou 

mete our love ; 

For how should I be loved as I 

love thee ? — 

I, graceless, joyless, lacking abso- 
lutely 

All gifts that with thy queenship 

best behove ; — 
Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove, 
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree, 
Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree, 
All beauties and all mysteries interwove. 

But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke : — 
< Then only,' (say'st thou), ' could I love thee less, 
When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.' 
Peace, sweet ! If not to sum but worth we look, — 
Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess, — 
Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I. 

XXXVII 




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presence wear 

Than thou, 'mid other ladies 

throned in grace ? — 

Or Pallas, when thou bend'st with 

soul-stilled face 

O'er poet's page gold-shadowed 

in thy hair ? 
Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair 
When o'er the sea of love's tumultuous trance 
Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance 
That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring 
there? 

Before such triune loveliness divine 
Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims 
The prize that, howsoe'er adjudged, is thine? 
Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names ; 
And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring 
Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning. 

XXXVIII 






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THE DARK GLASS 

OT I myself know all my love for 

thee: 

How should I reach so far, who 

cannot weigh 

To-morrow's dower by gage of 

yesterday ? 

Shall birth and death, and all dark 

names that be 
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, 
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ; 
And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay 
And ultimate outpost of eternity ? 

Lo ! what am I to Love, the lord of all ? 
One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, — 
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. 
Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call 
And veriest touch of powers primordial 
That any hour-girt life may understand. 

xxxix 





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THE LAMP'S SHRINE 

OMETIMES I fain would find in 

thee some fault, 

That I might love thee still in spite 

of it : 

Yet how should our Lord Love 

curtail one whit 

Thy perfect praise whom most he 

would exalt ? 
Alas ! he can but make my heart's low vault 
Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit 
By thee, who thereby show'st more exquisite 
Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt. 

Yet will I nowise shrink ; but at Love's shrine 

Myself within the beams his brow doth dart 

Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart 

In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine : 

For lo ! in honour of thine excellencies 

My heart takes pride to show how poor it is. 

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LIFE -IN -LOVE 

OT in thy body is thy life at 

all 

But in this lady's lips and hands 

and eyes ; 

Through these she yields the life 

that vivifies 

What else were sorrow's servant 

and death's thrall. 
Look on thyself without her, and recall 
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise 
That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs 
O'er vanished hours and hours eventual. 

Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair 
Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show 
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago ; 
Even so much life endures unknown, even where, 
'Mid change the changeless night environeth, 
Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death. 

XLI 



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THE LOVE -MOON 

HEN that dead face, bowered in 

the furthest years, 

Which once was all the life years 

held for thee, 

Can now scarce bide the tides of 

memory 

Cast on thy soul a little spray of 

tears, — 

How canst thou gaze into these eyes of hers 
Whom now thy heart delights in, and not see 
Within each orb Love's philtred euphrasy 
Make them of buried troth remembrancers? ' 

' Nay, pitiful Love, nay, loving Pity ! Well 
Thou knowest that in these twain I have confess' d 
Two very voices of thy summoning bell. 
Nay, Master, shall not Death make manifest 
In these the culminant changes which approve 
The love-moon that must light my soul to Love ? ' 

XLII 



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THE MORROW'S MESSAGE 

HOU Ghost/ I said, 'and is thy 

name To-day ? — 

Yesterday's son, with such an 

abject brow ! — 

And can To-morrow be more 

pale than thou?' 

While yet I spoke, the silence 

answered : ' Yea, 
Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey, 
And each beforehand makes such poor avow 
As of old leaves beneath the budding bough 
Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.' 

Then cried I : ' Mother of many malisons, 

Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed ! ' 
But therewithal the tremulous silence said : 

1 Lo ! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once : — 
Yea, twice, — whereby thy life is still the sun's ; 
And thrice, — whereby the shadow of death is dead.' 

XLIII 



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SLEEPLESS DREAMS 

IRT in dark growths, yet glimmer- 
ing with one star, 
O night desirous as the nights of 
youth ! 

Why should my heart within thy 
spell, forsooth, 

Now beat, as the bride's finger- 
pulses are 

Quickened within the girdling golden bar ? 

What wings are these that fan my pillow smooth ? 

And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth, 

Tread softly round and gaze at me from far ? 

Nay, night deep-leaved ! And would Love feign in 

thee 

Some shadowy palpitating grove that bears 

Rest for man's eyes and music for his ears ? 

O lonely night ! art thou not known to me, 

A thicket hung with masks of mockery 

And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears ? 







XLIV 










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SEVERED SELVES 

WO separate divided silences, 

Which, brought together, would 

find loving voice ; 

Two glances which together would 

rejoice 

In love, now lost like stars beyond 

dark trees; 

Two hands apart whose touch 
alone gives ease ; 

Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame, 
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same ; 
Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering 
seas : — 

Such are we now. Ah ! may our hope forecast 
Indeed one hour again, when on this stream 
Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam ? — 
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past, — 
Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last, 
Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream. 





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THROUGH DEATH TO LOVE 

IKE labour-laden moonclouds faint 

to flee 

From winds that sweep the winter- 
bitten wold, — 

Like multiform circumfluence 

manifold 

Of night's flood-tide, — like terrors 

that agree 

Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea, — 
Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath, 
Our hearts discern wild images of Death, 
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity. 

Howbeit athwart Death's imminent shade doth soar 
One Power, than flow of stream or flight of dove 
Sweeter to glide around, to brood above. 
Tell me, my heart; — what angel-greeted door 
Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor 
Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love ? 

XLVI 



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HOPE OVERTAKEN 

DEEMED thy garments, O my 

Hope, were grey, 

So far I viewed thee. Now the 

space between 

Is passed at length ; and garmented 

in green 

Even as in days of yore thou 

stand'st to-day. 
Ah God ! and but for lingering dull dismay, 
On all that road our footsteps erst had been 
Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen 
Blent on the hedgerows and the water-way. 

O Hope of mine whose eyes are living love, 

No eyes but hers, — O Love and Hope the same! — 

Lean close to me, for now the sinking sun 

That warmed our feet scarce gilds our hair above. 

O hers thy voice and very hers thy name ! 

Alas, cling round me, for the day is done ! 

XLVII 



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LOVE AND HOPE 

LESS love and hope. Full many 

a withered year 

Whirled past us, eddying to its 

chill doomsday; 

And clasped together where the 

blown leaves lay, 

We long have knelt and wept full 

many a tear. 
Yet lo ! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer, 
Flutes softly to us from some green byeway : 
Those years, those tears are dead, but only they : — 
Bless love and hope, true soul ; for we are here. 

Cling heart to heart ; nor of this hour demand 

Whether in very truth, when we are dead, 

Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head 

Sole sunshine of the imperishable land ; 

Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope, 

Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope. 

XLVIII 



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CLOUD AND WIND 

OVE, should I fear death most for 

you or me ? 

Yet if you die, can I not follow 

you, 

Forcing the straits of change? 

Alas! but who 

Shall wrest a bond from night's 

inveteracy, 
Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be 
Her warrant against all her haste might rue ? — 
Ah ! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu, 
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity ? 

And if I die the first, shall death be then 

A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep ? — 

Or (woe is me !) a bed wherein my sleep 

Ne'er notes (as death's dear cup at last you drain), 

The hour when you too learn that all is vain 

And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap ? 

XLIX 






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SECRET PARTING 

ECAUSE our talk was of the 

cloud-control 

And moon-track of the journeying 

face of Fate, 

Her tremulous kisses faltered at 

love's gate 

And her eyes dreamed against a 

distant goal : 
But soon, remembering her how brief the whole 
Of joy, which its own hours annihilate, 
Her set gaze gathered, thirstier than of late, 
And as she kissed, her mouth became her soul. 

Thence in what ways we wandered, and how strove 

To build with fire-tried vows the piteous home 

Which memory haunts and whither sleep may 

roam, — 

They only know for whom the roof of Love 

Is the still-seated secret of the grove, 

Nor spire may rise nor bell be heard therefrom. 




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PARTED LOVE 

HAT shall be said of this embat- 
tled day 

And armed occupation of this 

night 

By all thy foes beleaguered, — 

now when sight 

Nor sound denotes the loved one 

far away ? 

Of these thy vanquished hours what shalt thou say, — 
As every sense to which she dealt delight 
Now labours lonely o'er the stark noon-height 
To reach the sunset's desolate disarray ? 

Stand still, fond fettered wretch ! while Memory's art 
Parades the Past before thy face, and lures 
Thy spirit to her passionate portraitures : 
Till the tempestuous tide-gates flung apart 
Flood with wild will the hollows of thy heart, 
And thy heart rends thee, and thy body endures. 



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BROKEN MUSIC 

HE mother will not turn, who 

thinks she hears 

Her nursling's speech first grow 

articulate ; 

But breathless with averted eyes 

elate 

She sits, with open lips and open 

ears, 

That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears 
Thus oft my soul has hearkened ; till the song, 
A central moan for days, at length found tongue, 
And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears. 

But now, whatever while the soul is fain 

To list that wonted murmur, as it were 

The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate 

strain, — 

No breath of song, thy voice alone is there, 

O bitterly beloved ! and all her gain 

Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer. 

LII 



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DEATH -IN -LOVE 

HERE came an image in Life's 

retinue 

That had Love's wings and bore 

his gonfalon : 

Fair was the web, and nobly 

wrought thereon, 

O soul-sequestered face, thy form 

and hue! 

Bewildering sounds, such as Spring wakens to, 
Shook in its folds ; and through my heart its power 
Sped trackless as the immemorable hour 
When birth's dark portal groaned and all was new. 

But a veiled woman followed, and she caught 
The banner round its staff, to furl and cling, — 
Then plucked a feather from the bearer's wing, 
And held it to his lips that stirred it not, 
And said to me, ' Behold, there is no breath : 
I and this Love are one, and I am Death.' 

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WILLOWWOOD 
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SAT with Love upon a woodside 

well, 

Leaning across the water, I and 

he; 

Nor ever did he speak nor looked 

at me, 

But touched his lute wherein was 

audible 

The certain secret thing he had to tell : 
Only our mirrored eyes met silently 
In the low wave ; and that sound came to be 
The passionate voice I knew ; and my tears fell. 

And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers ; 
And with his foot and with his wing-feathers 
He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. 
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, 
And as I stooped, her own lips rising there 
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. 

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II 

ND now Love sang: but his was 

such a song, 

So meshed with half-remembrance 

hard to free, 

As souls disused in death's steril- 
ity 

May sing when the new birthday 

tarries long. 
And I was made aware of a dumb throng 
That stood aloof, one form by every tree, 
All mournful forms, for each was I or she, 
The shades of those our days that had no tongue. 

They looked on us, and knew us and were known ; 
While fast together, alive from the abyss, 
Clung the soul-wrung implacable close kiss ; 
And pity of self through all made broken moan 
Which said, ' For once, for once, for once alone ! * 
And still Love sang, and what he sang was this : - 

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Ill 

YE, all ye that walk in Willow- 
wood, 

That walk with hollow faces 
burning white ; 

What fathom-depth of soul- 
struck widowhood, 
What long, what longer hours, 
one lifelong night, 
Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed 
Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite 
Your lips to that their unforgotten food, 
Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light \ 

Alas ! the bitter banks in Willowwood, 

With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning 

red: 

Alas ! if ever such a pillow could 

Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead, — 

Better all life forget her than this thing, 

That Willowwood should hold her wandering ! ' 

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O sang he : and as meeting rose 

and rose 

Together cling through the wind's 

wellaway 

Nor change at once, yet near the 

end of day 

The leaves drop loosened where 

the heart-stain glows, — 
So when the song died did the kiss unclose ; 
And her face fell back drowned, and was as grey 
As its grey eyes ; and if it ever may 
Meet mine again I know not if Love knows. 

Only I know that I leaned low and drank 
A long draught from the water where she sank, 
Her breath and all her tears and all her soul : 
And as I leaned, I know I felt Love's face 
Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace, 
Till both our heads were in his aureole. 

LVII 






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WITHOUT HER 

HAT of her glass without her? 

The blank grey 

There where the pool is blind of 

the moon's face. 

Her dress without her ? The tossed 

empty space 

Of cloud-rack whence the moon 

has passed away. 
Her paths without her? Day's appointed sway 
Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place 
Without her ? Tears, ah me ! for love's good grace, 
And cold forgetfulness of night or day. 

What of the heart without her ? Nay, poor heart, 
Of thee what word remains ere speech be still ? 
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill, 
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art, 
Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart, 
Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill. 

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LOVE'S FATALITY 

WEET Love, — but oh! most 

dread Desire of Love 

Life-thwarted. Linked in gyves I 

saw them stand, 

Love shackled with Vain-longing, 

hand to hand : 

And one was eyed as the blue 

vault above : 
But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hove 
F the other's gaze, even as in his whose wand 
Vainly all night with spell-wrought power has 
spann'd 
The unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove. 

Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame, 
Made moan : ' Alas O Love, thus leashed with me ! 
Wing-footed thou, wing-shouldered, once born free : 
And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame, — 
Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name, — 
Life's iron heart, even Love's Fatality.' 

LIX 



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STILLBORN LOVE 

HE hour which might have been 

yet might not be, 

Which man's and woman's heart 

conceived and bore 

Yet whereof life was barren, — on 

what shore 

Bides it the breaking of Time's 

weary sea ? 
Bondchild of all consummate joys set free, 
It somewhere sighs and serves, and mute before 
The house of Love, hears through the echoing door 
His hours elect in choral consonancy. 

But lo ! what wedded souls now hand in hand 

Together tread at last the immortal strand 

With eyes where burning memory lights love home ? 

Lo ! how the little outcast hour has turned 

And leaped to them and in their faces yearned : — 

1 1 am your child : O parents, ye have come ! ' 

LX 



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TRUE WOMAN 

I. HERSELF 

O be a sweetness more desired than 

Spring ; 

A bodily beauty more acceptable 

Than the wild rose-tree's arch that 

crowns the fell ; 

To be an essence more environing 

Than wine's drained juice; a 

music ravishing 
More than the passionate pulse of Philomel ; — 
To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell 
That is the flower of life : — how strange a thing ! 

How strange a thing to be what Man can know 

But as a sacred secret ! Heaven's own screen 

Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow; 

Closely withheld, as all things most unseen, — 

The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of 

green 

That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow. 

LXI 



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II. HER LOVE 

HE loves him ; for her infinite soul 

is Love, 

And he her lodestar. Passion in 

her is 

A glass facing his fire, where the 

bright bliss 

Is mirrored, and the heat returned. 

Yet move 

That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to prove, 
And it shall turn, by instant contraries, 
Ice to the moon ; while her pure fire to his 
For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove. 

Lo ! they are one. With wifely breast to breast 
And circling arms, she welcomes all command 
Of love, — her soul to answering ardours fann'd: 
Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, 
Ah ! who shall say she deems not loveliest 
The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand ? 

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III. HER HEAVEN 

F to grow old in Heaven is to grow 

young, 

(As the Seer saw and said,) then 

blest were he 

With youth forevermore, whose 

heaven should be 

True Woman, she whom these 

weak notes have sung. 
Here and hereafter, — choir-strains of her tongue, — 
Sky-spaces of her eyes, — sweet signs that flee 
About her soul's immediate sanctuary, — 
Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among. 

The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill 

Like any hillflower ; and the noblest troth 

Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise 

clothe 

Even yet those lovers who have cherished still 

This test for love : — in every kiss sealed fast 

To feel the first kiss and forebode the last. 

LXIII 




LOVE'S LAST GIFT 

OVE to his singer held a glisten- 
ing leaf, 

And said : ' The rose-tree and the 

apple-tree 

Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to 

lure the bee ; 

And golden shafts are in the 

feathered sheaf 
Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief, 
Victorious Summer ; aye, and 'neath warm sea 
Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably 
Between the filtering channels of sunk reef. 

All are my blooms ; and all sweet blooms of love 
To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang ; 
But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang 
From those worse things the wind is moaning of. 
Only this laurel dreads no winter days : 
Take my last gift ; thy heart hath sung my praise.' 

LXIV 



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Part II. CHANGE AND FATE 











TRANSFIGURED LIFE 

S growth of form or momentary 

glance 

In a child's features will re-call to 

mind 

The father's with the mother's 

face combin'd, — 

Sweet interchange that memories 

still enhance : 
And yet, as childhood's years and youth's advance, 
The gradual mouldings leave one stamp behind, 
Till in the blended likeness now we find 
A separate man's or woman's countenance : — 

So in the Song, the singer's Joy and Pain, 

Its very parents, evermore expand 

To bid the passion's fullgrown birth remain, 

By Art's transfiguring essence subtly spann'd ; 

And from that song-cloud shaped as a man's hand 

There comes the sound as of abundant rain. 

LXVII 



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THE SONG-THROE 




Y thine own tears thy song must 

tears beget, 

O Singer ! Magic mirror thou hast 

none 

Except thy manifest heart; and 

save thine own 

Anguish or ardour, else no amu- 
let. 

Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet 
Of soulless air-flung fountains ; nay, more dry 
Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh, 
That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet. 

The Song-god — He the Sun-god — is no slave 
Of thine : thy Hunter he, who for thy soul 
Fledges his shaft : to no august control 
Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave: 
But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart, 
The inspir'd recoil shall pierce thy brother's heart. 

Lxvra 




THE SOUL'S SPHERE 

OME prisoned moon in steep cloud- 
fastnesses, — 

Throned queen and thralled ; some 
dying sun whose pyre 
Blazed with momentous memo- 
rable fire ; — 

Who hath not yearned and fed his 
heart with these ? 
Who, sleepless, hath not anguished to appease 
Tragical shadow's realm of sound and sight 
Conjectured in the lamentable night? . . . 
Lo ! the soul's sphere of infinite images ! 

What sense shall count them ? Whether it forecast 
The rose-winged hours that flutter in the van 
Of Love's unquestioning unrevealed span, — 
Visions of golden futures : or that last 
Wild pageant of the accumulated past 
That clangs and flashes for a drowning man. 



LXIX 



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INCLUSIVENESS 

HE changing guests, each in a 

different mood, 

Sit at the roadside table and 

arise : 

And every life among them in 

likewise 

Is a soul's board set daily with 

new food. 

What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood 
How that face shall watch his when cold it lies ? — 
Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes, 
Of what her kiss was when his father wooed ? 

May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell 

In separate living souls for joy or pain ? 

Nay, all its corners may be painted plain 

Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent 

well; 

And may be stamped, a memory all in vain, 

Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell. 



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ARDOUR AND MEMORY 

HE cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of 

the Spring ; 

The rosebud's blush that leaves it 

as it grows 

Into the full-eyed fair unblushing 

rose; 

The summer clouds that visit 

every wing 
With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting ; 
The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 
'Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn, 
While all the daughters of the daybreak sing : — 

These ardour loves, and memory : and when flown 
All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight 
The wind swoops onward brandishing the light, 
Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone 
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone ; 
With ditties and with dirges infinite. 

LXXI 






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KNOWN IN VAIN 

S two whose love, first foolish, 

widening scope, 

Knows suddenly, with music high 

and soft, 

The Holy of holies ; who because 

they scoff' d 

Are now amazed with shame, nor 

dare to cope 

With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope ; 
Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd 
In speech ; nor speak, at length ; but sitting oft 
Together, within hopeless sight of hope 
For hours are silent : — So it happeneth 
When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze 
After their life sailed by, and hold their breath. 
Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad 
maze 

Thenceforth their incommunicable ways 
Follow the desultory feet of Death ? 

LXXII 







THE HEART OF THE NIGHT 

ROM child to youth; from youth 

to arduous man ; 

From lethargy to fever of the 

heart ; 

From faithful life to dream-dow- 
ered days apart; 

From trust to doubt; from doubt 

to brink of ban ; — 
Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran 
Till now. Alas, the soul ! — how soon must she 
Accept her primal immortality, — 
The flesh resume its dust whence it began ? 

O Lord of work and peace ! O Lord of life ! 
O Lord, the awful Lord of will ! though late, 
Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath : 
That when the peace is garnered in from strife, 
The work retrieved, the will regenerate, 
This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death ! 

LXXIII 











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THE LANDMARK 

flAS /&*/ the landmark? What,— 

the foolish well 

Whose wave, low down, I did 

not stoop to drink, 

But sat and flung the pebbles 

from its brink 

In sport to send its imaged skies 

pell-mell, 

(And mine own image, had I noted well ! ) — 
Was that my point of turning ? — I had thought 
The stations of my course should rise unsought, 
As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. 

But lo ! the path is missed, I must go back, 

And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring 

Which once I stained, which since may have grown 

black. 

Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing 

As here I turn, 111 thank God, hastening, 

That the same goal is still on the same track. 

LXXH 






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A DARK DAY 

HE gloom that breathes upon me 

with these airs 

Is like the drops which strike the 

traveller's brow 

Who knows not, darkling, if they 

bring him now 

Fresh storm, or be old rain the 

covert bears. 
Ah ! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares, 
Or hath but memory of the day whose plough 
Sowed hunger once, — the night at length when thou, 
O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers ? 

How prickly were the growths which yet how 

smooth, 

Along the hedgerows of this journey shed, 

Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe ! 

Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead 

Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth, 

Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed. 

LXXV 




AUTUMN IDLENESS 

HIS sunlight shames November 

where he grieves 

In dead red leaves, and will not 

let him shun 

The day, though bough with bough 

be over-run. 

But with a blessing every glade 

receives 

High salutation ; while from hillock-eaves 
The deer gaze calling, dappled white and dun, 
As if, being foresters of old, the sun 
Had marked them with the shade of forest-leaves. 

Here dawn to-day unveiled her magic glass ; 
Here noon now gives the thirst and takes the dew ; 
Till eve bring rest when other good things pass. 
And here the lost hours the lost hours renew 
While I still lead my shadow o'er the grass, 
Nor know, for longing, that which I should do. 

LXXVI 





THE HILL SUMMIT 

HIS feast-day of the sun, his altar 

there 

In the broad west has blazed for 

vesper-song ; 

And I have loitered in the vale too 

long 

And gaze now a belated wor- 
shipper. 

Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware, 
So journeying, of his face at intervals 
Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls, — 
A fiery bush with coruscating hair. 

And now that I have climbed and won this height, 
I must tread downward through the sloping shade 
And travel the bewildered tracks till night. 
Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed 
And see the gold air and the silver fade 
And the last bird fly into the last light. 

LXXVII 



THE CHOICE 




AT thou and drink; to-morrow 

thou shalt die. 

Surely the earth, that 's wise 

being very old, 

Needs not our help. Then loose 

me, love, and hold 

Thy sultry hair up from my face ; 

that I 

May pour for thee this yellow wine, brim-high, 
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. 
We '11 drown all hours : thy song, while hours are 
toll'd, 
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky. 

Now kiss, and think that there are really those, 
My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase 
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way ! 
Through many days they toil ; then comes a day 
They die not, — never having lived, — but cease ; 
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. 

LXXVIII 



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ATCH thou and fear; to-morrow 

thou shalt die. 

Or art thou sure thou shalt have 

time for death ? 

Is not the day which God's word 

promiseth 

To come man knows not when? 

In yonder sky, 
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth : can I 
Or thou assure him of his goal ? God's breath 
Even at the moment haply quickeneth 
The air to a flame ; till spirits, always nigh 
Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight 
here. 

And dost thou prate of all that man shall do ? 
Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be 
Glad in his gladness that comes after thee ? 
Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell ? Go to : 
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear. 

LXXIX 



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HINK thou and act; to-morrow 

thou shalt die. 

Outstretched in the sun's warmth 

upon the shore, 

Thou say'st: 'Man's measured 

path is all gone o'er : 

Up all his years, steeply, with 

strain and sigh, 
Man clomb until he touched the truth ; and I, 
Even I, am he whom it was destined for.' 
How should this be? Art thou then so much more 
Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap 
thereby ? 

Nay, come up hither. From this wave- washed 

mound 

Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me ; 

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown' d. 

Miles and miles distant though the grey line be, 

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues 

beyond, — 

Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea. 



LXXX 



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OLD AND NEW ART 

I. ST. LUKE THE PAINTER 

I VE honour unto Luke Evangelist ; 

For he it was (the aged legends say) 

Who first taught Art to fold her 

hands and pray. 

Scarcely at once she dared to rend 

the mist 

Of devious symbols: but soon 

having wist 

How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day 
Are symbols also in some deeper way, 
She looked through these to God and was God's 
priest. 

And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, 

And she sought talismans, and turned in vain 

To soulless self- reflections of man's skill, — 

Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still 

Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, 

Ere the night cometh and she may not work. 

LXXXI 




II. NOT AS THESE 

AM not as these are/ the poet 

saith 

In youth's pride, and the painter, 

among men 

At bay, where never pencil comes 

nor pen, 

And shut about with his own 

frozen breath. 
To others, for whom only rhyme wins faith 
As poets, — only paint as painters, — then 
He turns in the cold silence ; and again 
Shrinking, ' I am not as these are,' he saith. 

And say that this is so, what follows it ? 

For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head, 

Such words were well ; but they see on, and far. 

Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit 

Fair for the Future's track, look thou instead, — 

Say thou instead, ' I am not as these are.' 

LXXXII 




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III. THE HUSBANDMEN 

HOUGH God, as one that is an 
householder, 

Called these to labour in his vine- 
yard first, 

Before the husk of darkness was 
1 well burst 
Bidding them grope their way out 
and bestir, 

(Who, questioned of their wages, answered, ' Sir, 
Unto each man a penny : ') though the worst 
Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst : 
Though God hath since found none such as these 
were 

To do their work like them : — Because of this 
Stand not ye idle in the market-place. 
Which of ye knoweth he is not that last 
Who may be first by faith and will ? — yea, his 
The hand which after the appointed days 
And hours shall give a Future to their Past ? 

lxxxui 




SOUL'S BEAUTY 

NDER the arch of Life, where love 

and death, 

Terror and mystery, guard her 

shrine, I saw 

Beauty enthroned; and though 

her gaze struck awe, 

I drew it in as simply as my 

breath. 

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, 
The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw, 
By sea or sky or woman, to one law, 
The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. 

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise 

Thy voice and hand shake still, — long known to 

thee 

By flying hair and fluttering hem, — the beat 

Following her daily of thy heart and feet, 

How passionately and irretrievably, 

In what fond flight, how many ways and days ! 

LXXXIV 




BODY'S BEAUTY 

F Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told 

(The witch he loved before the gift 

of Eve,) 

That, ere the snake's, her sweet 

tongue could deceive, 

And her enchanted hair was the 

first gold. 

And still she sits, young while 

the earth is old, 
And, subtly of herself contemplative, 
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, 
Till heart and body and life are in its hold. 

The rose and poppy are her flowers ; for where 
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent 
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? 
Lo ! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went 
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent 
And round his heart one strangling golden hair. 

LXXXV 



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THE MONOCHORD 

|S it this sky's vast vault or ocean's 

sound 

That is Life's self and draws my 

life from me, 

And by instinct ineffable decree 

Holds my breath quailing on the 

bitter bound ? 

Nay, is it Life or Death, thus 

thunder-crown'd, 
That 'mid the tide of all emergency 
Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea 
Its difficult eddies labour in the ground ? 

Oh ! what is this that knows the road I came, 

The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, 

The lifted shifted steeps and all the way ? — 

That draws round me at last this wind-warm space, 

And in regenerate rapture turns my face 

Upon the devious coverts of dismay ? 

LXXXVI 






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FROM DAWN TO NOON 




S the child knows not if his 

mother's face 

Be fair ; nor of his elders yet can 

deem 

What each most is ; but as of hill 

or stream 

At dawn, all glimmering life sur- 
rounds his place : 
Who yet, tow'rd noon of his half-weary race, 
Pausing awhile beneath the high sun-beam 
And gazing steadily back, — as through a dream, 
In things long past new features now can trace : — 

Even so the thought that is at length fullgrown 
Turns back to note the sun-smit paths, all grey 
And marvellous once, where first it walked alone ; 
And haply doubts, amid the unblenching day, 
Which most or least impelled its onward way, — 
Those unknown things or these things overknown. 

LXXXVII 



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MEMORIAL THRESHOLDS 

HAT place so strange, — though 

unrevealed snow 

With unimaginable fires arise 

At the earth's end, — what passion 

of surprise 

Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes. 

of long ago ? 

Lo! this is none but I this hour; 

and lo ! 
This is the very place which to mine eyes 
Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, 
'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know. 

City, of thine a single simple door, 

By some new Power reduplicate, must be 

Even yet my life-porch in eternity, 

Even with one presence filled, as once of yore : 

Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor 

Thee and thy years and these my words and me. 

LXXXVIII 





HOARDED JOY 

SAID: 'Nay, pluck not, — let the 

first fruit be : 

Even as thou sayest, it is sweet 

and red, 

But let it ripen still. The tree's 

bent head 

Sees in the stream its own fe- 
cundity 

And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we 
At the sun's hour that day possess the shade, 
And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade, 
And eat it from the branch and praise the tree ? ' 

I say : ' Alas ! our fruit hath wooed the sun 

Too long, — 'tis fallen and floats adown the stream. 

Lo, the last clusters ! Pluck them every one, 

And let us sup with summer ; ere the gleam 

Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, 

And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.' 

LXXXIX 




BARREN SPRING 

O now the changed year's turning 

wheel returns : 

And as a girl sails balanced in the 

wind, 

And now before and now again 

behind 

Stoops as it swoops, with cheek 

that laughs and burns, — 
So Spring comes merry towards me now, but earns 
No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd 
With the dead boughs that winter still must bind, 
And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns. 

Behold, this crocus is a withering flame ; 

This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part 

To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art. 

Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from 

them, 

Nor gaze till on the year's last lily-stem 

The white cup shrivels round the golden heart. 





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FAREWELL TO THE GLEN 




WEET stream-fed glen, why say 

' farewell ' to thee 

Who far'st so well and find'st for 

ever smooth 

The brow of Time where man 

may read no ruth? 

Nay, do thou rather say ' farewell ' 

to me, 

Who now fare forth in bitterer fantasy 
Than erst was mine where other shade might soothe 
By other streams, what while in fragrant youth 
The bliss of being sad made melancholy. 

And yet, farewell ! For better shalt thou fare 
When children bathe sweet faces in thy flow 
And happy lovers blend sweet shadows there 
In hours to come, than when an hour ago 
Thine echoes had but one man's sighs to bear 
And thy trees whispered what he feared to know. 



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VAIN VIRTUES 

HAT is the sorriest thing that 

enters Hell ? 

None of the sins, — but this and 

that fair deed 

Which a soul's sin at length could 

supersede. 

These yet are virgins, whom 

death's timely knell 
Might once have sainted ; whom the fiends compel 
Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves 
Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves 
Their refuse maidenhood abominable. 

Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit, 
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life, 
Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair 
And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit 
To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife, 
The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there. 

xcn 



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LOST DAYS 




HE lost days of my life until to-day, 

What were they, could I see them 

on the street 

Lie as they fell? Would they be 

ears of wheat 

Sown once for food but trodden 

into clay ? 

Or golden coins squandered and 

still to pay ? 
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ? 
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 
The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway ? 

I do not see them here ; but after death 
God knows I know the faces I shall see, 

Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 

I I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me ? ' 

' And I — and I — thyself,' (lo ! each one saith,) 
' And thou thyself to all eternity ! ' 

xcm 




DEATH'S SONGSTERS 

3 HEN first that horse, within whose 
populous womb 

The birth was death, o'ershad- 
i owed Troy with fate, 
Her elders, dubious of its Grecian 
freight, 
f Brought Helen there to sing the 
^^2itsi5^» songs of home : 
She whispered, ' Friends, I am alone ; come, come ! ' 
Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid, 
And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid 
His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb. 

The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, 
There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel- 
caves, 

Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd, 
Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves. . . . 
Say, soul, — are songs of Death no heaven to thee, 
Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory? 

xciv 




HERO'S LAMP 1 

HAT lamp thou fill'st in Eros 

name to-night, 

O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs 

take 

To-morrow, and for drowned 

Leander's sake 

To Anteros its fireless lip shall 

plight. 

Aye, waft the unspoken vow : yet dawn's first light 
On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break ; 
While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, 
Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte. 

That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine 
Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree) 
Till some one man the happy issue see 
Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine : 
Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine, 
O brother, what brought love to them or thee ? 

1 After the deaths of Leander and Hero, the signal-lamp was dedicated to Anteros, with the edict 
that no man should light it unless his love had proved fortunate. 

xcv 




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TREES OF THE GARDEN 

E who have passed Death's hag- 
gard hills ; and ye 

Whom trees that knew your sires 

shall cease to know 

And still stand silent : — is it all a 

show, — 

A wisp that laughs upon the wall ? 

— decree 
Of some inexorable supremacy 
Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise 
From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, 
Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury ? 

Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke 
The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day 
Whose roots are hillocks where the children play ; 
Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke 
Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, 
shall wage 

Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. 

xcvi 



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RETRO ME, SATHANA!' 

ET thee behind me. Even as, 

heavy-curled, 

Stooping against the wind, a char- 
ioteer 

Is snatched from out his chariot 

by the hair, 

So shall Time be ; and as the void 

car, hurled 

Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world : 
Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, 
It shall be sought and not found anywhere. 
Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, 
Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath 
Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. 
Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways 
Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, 
Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath 
For certain years, for certain months and days. 

xcvn 



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LOST ON BOTH SIDES 




S when two men have loved a 

woman well, 

Each hating each, through Love's 

and Death's deceit ; 

Since not for either this stark 

marriage-sheet 

And the long pauses of this wed- 
ding bell ; 

Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel 
At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat ; 
Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet 
The two lives left that most of her can tell : — 

So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed 
The one same Peace, strove with each other long, 
And Peace before their faces perished since : 
So through that soul, in restless brotherhood, 
They roam together now, and wind among 
Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns. 

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THE SUN'S SHAME 




EHOLDING youth and hope in 

mockery caught 

From life; and mocking pulses 

that remain 

When the soul's death of bodily 

death is fain ; 

Honour unknown, and honour 

known unsought ; 
And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought 
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane ; 
And longed-for woman longing all in vain 
For lonely man with love's desire distraught ; 
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleas- 
antness, 

Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, 
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they : — 
Beholding these things, I behold no less 
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess 

The shame that loads the intolerable day. 

xcix 





S some true chief of men, bowed 
down with stress 

Of life's disastrous eld, on blos- 
soming youth 

May gaze, and murmur with self- 
pity and ruth, — 

' Might I thy fruitless treasure but 
possess, 

Such blessing of mine all coming years should 
bless ; ' — 

Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal, 
And bitterly feels breathe against his soul 
The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness : — 

Even so the World's grey Soul to the green World 

Perchance one hour must cry : ' Woe's me, for 

whom 

Inveteracy of ill portends the doom, — 

Whose heart's old fire in shadow of shame is furl'd : 

While thou even as of yore art journeying, 

All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring ! ' 



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MICHELANGELO'S KISS 

REAT Michelangelo, with age 

grown bleak 

And uttermost labours, having 

once o'ersaid 

All grievous memories on his long 

life shed, 

This worst regret to one true heart 

could speak : — 
That when, with sorrowing love and reverence meek, 
He stooped o'er sweet Colonna's dying bed, 
His Muse and dominant Lady, spirit-wed, — 
Her hand he kissed, but not her brow or cheek. 

O Buonarruoti, — good at Art's fire-wheels 

To urge her chariot ! — even thus the Soul, 

Touching at length some sorely-chastened goal, 

Earns oftenest but a little : her appeals 

Were deep and mute, — lowly her claim. Let be : 

What holds for her Death's garner ? And for thee ? 



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THE VASE OF LIFE 




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ROUND the vase of Life at your 

slow pace 

He has not crept, but turned it 

with his hands, 

And all its sides already under- 
stands. 

There, girt, one breathes alert for 

some great race ; 
Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space ; 
Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd ; 
Who weeps, nor stays for weeping ; who at last, 
A youth, stands somewhere crowned, with silent 
face. 

And he has filled this vase with wine for blood, 
With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow, 
With watered flowers for buried love most fit ; 
And would have cast it shattered to the flood, 
Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole ; which now 
Stands empty till his ashes fall in it. 



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LIFE THE BELOVED 

S thy friend's face, with shadow of 

soul o'erspread, 

Somewhile unto thy sight per- 
chance hath been 

Ghastly and strange, yet never 

so is seen 

In thought, but to all fortunate 

favour wed ; 
As thy love's death-bound features never dead 
To memory's glass return, but contravene 
Frail fugitive days, and always keep, I ween 
Than all new life a livelier lovelihead : — 

So Life herself, thy spirit's friend and love, 
Even still as Spring's authentic harbinger 
Glows with fresh hours for hope to glorify ; 
Though pale she lay when in the winter grove 
Her funeral flowers were snow-flakes shed on her 
And the red wings of frost-fire rent the sky. 

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A SUPERSCRIPTION 

OOK in my face; my name is 
Might-have-been ; 
I am also called No-more, Too- 
late, Farewell ; 

Unto thine ear I hold the dead- 
sea shell 

Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted 
feet between ; 
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen 
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell 
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, 
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. 

Mark me, how still I am ! But should there dart 
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise 
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs, 
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart 
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart 
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes. 

civ 




HE AND I 

HENCE came his feet into my 

field, and why ? 

How is it that he sees it all so 

drear ? 

How do I see his seeing, and 

how hear 

The name his bitter silence knows 

it by? 

This was the little fold of separate sky 
Whose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphere 
Drew living light from one continual year : 
How should he find it lifeless ? He, or I ? 

Lo ! this new Self now wanders round my field, 
With plaints for every flower, and for each tree 
A moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary : 
And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yield 
Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd, 
Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he. 

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NEWBORN DEATH 




;0-DAY Death seems to me an 

infant child 

Which her worn mother Life upon 

my knee 

Has set to grow my friend and 

play with me ; 

If haply so my heart might be be- 

guil'd 

To find no terrors in a face so mild, — 
If haply so my weary heart might be 
Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee, 
O Death, before resentment reconcil'd. 

How long, O Death ? And shall thy feet depart 
Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand 
Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart, 
What time with thee indeed I reach the strand 
Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, 
And drink it in the hollow of thy hand ? 

cvi 




ND thou, O Life, the lady of all 

bliss, 

With whom, when our first heart 

beat full and fast, 

I wandered till the haunts of men 

were pass'd, 

And in fair places found all bowers 

amiss 

Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, 
While to the winds all thought of Death we cast : — 
Ah, Life ! and must I have from thee at last 
No smile to greet me and no babe but this ? 

Lo ! Love, the child once ours ; and Song, whose hair 

Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath ; 

And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair ; 

These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath 

With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there: 

And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death ? 

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THE ONE HOPE 

(9 HEN all desire at last and all re- 
gret 

Go hand in hand to death, and 
j^J all is vain, 

What shall assuage the unfor-IJfi 
gotten pain Vk| . 

r And teach the unforgetful to for- 2^* ' 
3$ get? 
Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet, — 
Or may the soul at once in a green plain 
Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain 
§jj U And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet ? 

Ah ! when the wan soul in that golden air 
Between the scriptured petals softly blown 
Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown, — 
Ah ! let none other written spell soe'er 
But only the one Hope's one name be there, — 
Not less nor more, but even that word alone. 

cvin 









THE 
COLONIAL' PRESS 

BOSTON 





i cur CM.D'.V. 

NOV, 4 1903 



NOV W I* 03 



APR 2 9 1931 



in- ) 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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014 528 656 6 *| 



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